A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1469 entries
fast-ice
Fast-ice is sea ice that is attached to the shore, to the sea floor, or to a grounded iceberg, and does not move with the wind or the current. Its full name is landfast ice. It can extend a few yards or a few hundred miles, and its outer boundary is the fast-ice edge, where the moving pack begins. For anyone traveling on sea ice, that edge is the most important line on the ice.
Etymology
The word is not about speed. Fast here is the older English sense of firmly fixed in place, which survives in hold fast, steadfast, stuck fast, and fasten. The sense that means quick came later and came out of the first one.
Notes
Fast-ice is the working surface of the Arctic winter. It is the platform for travel, for sealing, and for setting nets through, and its stability is judged by how it is anchored and how the tide moves under it. Emperor penguins breed on fast-ice, which is the only reason the colonies can exist where they do.